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Essel Mutual Fund, a recent entrant in the Indian mutual fund industry, is eyeing assets under management of Rs 8,000-9,000 crore by end-March 2019, a top official said. This is against a current quarterly AUM average of about Rs 1,700 crore. The expected growth is largely going to be led by liquid funds, Viral Berawala, Chief Investment Officer, Essel Mutual Fund, told BusinessLine here.
LIQUID FUNDS
Currently, liquid funds account for the lion’s share of overall AUM at about Rs 1,000 crore, he said. It may be recalled that Essel Mutual Fund had in September last year completed the acquisition of Peerless Mutual Fund. “In six months from the September quarter last year, our AUM has doubled to average Rs 1,700 crore. Going forward in 2018-19, we expect the overall AUM to be led by liquid funds, which is expected to grow to around Rs 6,000 crore,” Berawala said.
EQUITY HYBRID FUND
In 2018-19, Essel Mutual Fund plans to launch at least three equity-oriented funds, including the upcoming ‘Essel Equity Hybrid Fund’, whose New Fund Offer (NFO) opens on April 9 and ends on April 23. Berawala said the ‘Essel Equity Hybrid Fund’ could invest anywhere between 65-80 per cent of the fund corpus in equities and would be a market cap agnostic product (on the equity side).
Berawala said the focus of the fund house will be to ramp up AUM and build its brand before bringing something “innovative” to the market. “In the first 12-18 months of our existence, we want to fill the white spaces. We are still not there in big categories like mid-cap funds. We will do me-too products first and then look at innovative products. We do have some ideas on the products side,” Berawala said.
TRANSPARENCY
Essel Mutual Fund plans to publish the entire portfolio of its liquid funds on its website. “No other fund house is doing this and we feel there is nothing wrong in being transparent,” he said. On the earnings growth of India Inc, Berawala said he is in the camp which sees earnings growth of 18 per cent for Nifty companies in 2018-19.
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